


When you gaze into the abyss

by Lightning070



Series: Tales of two Space Warriors and their Green Womprat [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Badass Cara Dune, Badass Din Djarin, Blood and Torture, Bounty Hunters, Cara Dune Whump, Childhood Trauma, Dark, Darkness, Din Djarin Needs a Hug, Din Djarin Whump, Din Djarin's helmet, Disturbing Themes, F/M, Fear, Headcanon, Hunt Gone Wrong, Hurt Din Djarin, Mandalorian Culture, Mild Horror, New Planets, Nightmare Fuel, POV Cara Dune, Protective Cara Dune, Some Plot, Space family, Sunless Sea references, Supportive Cara Dune, Whump, this got darker than I meant to
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27180430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning070/pseuds/Lightning070
Summary: “They say they feed on dreams. Whatever the kriff that means.”“I don’t plan on staying here long enough to find out,” Din said, curtly.Cara stopped fiddling with her holster’s strap and raised her eyes to see him standing right on the edge of the Crest’s exit ramp, as if he were reluctant to set foot on the mossy, damp soil of Varchas. The Child let out a feeble coo from his compartment.“Something wrong with this planet?”Din stifled a sigh.“I just don’t like it.” He tentatively stepped out, boots sinking into the soft, dark undergrowth. “Call it a feeling.”Bounty hunting is a dangerous profession: missions can go wrong. You just never know how wrong.[Hurt/Comfort // Angst // What if? // Action/Adventure // Din/Cara // Space Family // English is not my first language!]
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin/Cara Dune
Series: Tales of two Space Warriors and their Green Womprat [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2091606
Comments: 84
Kudos: 166





	1. Another kind of darkness

**Author's Note:**

> So, I felt like writing some Din Djarin whump, but I also had many Caradin feelings, and I also had a half-baked idea for a new planet, and I also wanted some Din's headcanon childhood memories sprinkled here and there. So this happened.  
> It was supposed to be a one-shot and of course it turned into a mini-long, as usual. Hope you like it!
> 
> [I'm writing this as I go, but I'm hoping to update in about a week or so.]

He tastes blood in his mouth. His eyelids flutter open and the world around him splits into two halves. He can’t fully open his left eye, and he feels a veil of clotted blood around it. He feels blood coming out of his ear too, trickling down his neck.

He lets out a stifled moan when he tries moving his leg: two sharp nails sink right into his ankle and knee joints. He stills himself, waiting with gritted teeth for the pain to subdue. He closes his eyes again, and colorful sparkles flash in front of him like blaster shots.

Where the _osik_ is he? He takes a peek between his eyelashes, and it stings as if he were staring directly into the sun: the dim lights and rocky appearance he makes out beyond his teary eyes suggest an underground prison. _How_ did he end up down here? His mind is fuzzy, slower than it should be. There's a buzzing in his ear, like a swarm of angry bees.

It was a trap, all right. And eight full-armed mercenaries were a tough match even for him. He got knocked out, it seems. He doesn’t remember the _moment_ , though. He doesn't–-

He skips a beat.

Where’s Cara? And the Child? His heart gets strangled by a vice when he can’t pinpoint their whereabouts. He _always_ knows where they are. Why can’t he remember now?

He tries to retrace his own steps.

The lead. The dream-honey warehouse. The idle SBDs. They… _talked_ , Cara and him, and maybe he told her too much. Maybe he didn’t really regret it right away. He didn't have the time to, because then they got ambushed and separated.

_How?_

His head feels on the verge of cracking open like an egg: it hurts so much he can feel every detail of the rough floor ingrained in his skull.

That’s when his eyes open wide in realization. The bare rock comes into focus, then his ragged and bloody wrists.

No visor between his eyes and the exterior. _No helmet_.

He feels his breath getting caught in his throat like solid durasteel, invading his lungs.

_His helmet_.

They took it away. They took– _they took_ – his mind gets frantic, his breath uneven. He shrinks under the weight of his loss. They _saw_ his face, they _know_ him, they– trampled his pride and dignity and stole what it feels like his very own heart, ripping out blood vessels and arteries and veins along with it. 

There’s a gaping hole in the middle of his chest. He claws at his shirt and flinches. The armor is gone. They took that too, of course. He wonders if he's really bleeding. He can feel the dampness of the fabric with his fingertips and it surely feels, smells, and tastes like blood. But it seems also thicker, somehow, and sweeter, like… _honey?_

His dismay overcomes his humiliation for just a split second. But he’s not wounded, so he’s not dying. He can’t think of it as a good thing, right now.

He writhes on the ground, trying to sit up as each and every muscle aches and strains – he must have some cracked ribs and a sprained wrist, or at least it feels like it. His leg is a mess and it’s definitely broken in two spots – he can barely drag it on the ground without screaming. He manages to sit up with his back against the wall and he finally sees the yellowish electro-bars shutting his cell.

It _is_ a prison after all. He can hear muffled yells in the distance, and what sounds like the echo of an electro-whip. He looks at the fizzling rays of energy in a daze and knows he’s in no shape to try and find a way around them. But he doesn’t care. He can barely breathe and think straight at the same time.

Is it even _worth_ trying to escape?

 _The Child_ , booms loudly in his ears, _Cara_. It should be. Why isn’t it then? He’s been ready to lay his life for them before, but now he can’t even _form_ the thought of seeing them again.

His head feels too light now, and he sorely misses the beskar’s familiar weight and the fresh, enclosed world of his visor. He feels naked, exposed like a raw nerve. His bare skin crawls with shivers when his arms graze the wall. The hair on his undefended nape stands uncomfortably. It’s like they cut off a limb from him and left him to bleed out, only he didn’t.

It hits him then.

He's not a Mandalorian anymore.

The hole in his chest gets deeper, wider, swallows his lungs and chest until in becomes an abyss.

He shuts his eyes and tries to steady his erratic breath. He’s been hyperventilating until now and the dizziness makes him feel like he’s head diving mid-air with his jetpack. Maybe he is. He squeezes his eyes tighter. It hurts and makes him see stars pinned behind his eyelids through the shudders. He _knows_ what happened, he just doesn't want to see it yet.

He can’t fix this. He’s done for and now, no matter what, he’s going to die a _coward’s_ death – the fear that’s been gnawing at him since the moment he wore the beskar.

He’s already dead. A sickening feeling of helplessness and nudity creeps under his skin. He knows that if he opens his eyes, he’ll give reality and shape to his new condition.

So he doesn’t, not yet, like a child cowering from darkness under the blankets – into just another kind of darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the feeling that the "Din gets his helmet removed by force and suffers" trope might be slightly predictable/cliché/overused, but I also didn't really delve into the fandom to find out, so... if you see similarities with other stories, it's totally coincidental and involuntary ♥
> 
> Also, if the planet's name in the intro and the mentions of dream-honey ring a bell... well, you're right, my delicious friends (otherwise, look up Fallen London/Sunless Sea and you -probably- won't regret it).


	2. The Twilight Planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while, sorry for the long wait!  
> Thank you for the awesome feedback and comments in the first chapter: I wasn't expecting it and it's nice to see the fandom is so active and supportive!
> 
> Enjoy your read, and don't forget to take a look and the notes at the end! ♥
> 
> (As always, feel free to point out any mistakes, I'm sure the verbs are a mess here and there and I'm sorry about it!)

**One day before**

“They say they _feed on dreams_. Whatever the _kriff_ that means.”

“I don’t plan on staying here long enough to find out,” Din answered, curtly.

Cara stopped fiddling with her holster’s strap and raised her eyes to see him standing right on the edge of the _Crest_ ’s exit ramp, as if he were reluctant to set foot on the mossy, damp soil of Varchas. The Child let out a feeble coo from his compartment.

“Something wrong with this planet?”

Din stifled a sigh.

“I just… don’t like it.” He tentatively stepped out, boots sinking into the soft, dark undergrowth. “Call it a feeling.”

Cara blinked, taken aback by the vagueness of his response. Din didn’t act on feelings and impressions, let alone _preferences_. He was all facts and tactics and right angles and vantage points, like every Mandalorian bounty hunter should be. Feelings didn’t come into play – except when the Child was in danger.

And except on Varchas, it seemed. He had been on edge ever since they took that contract upon them. Cara could read him fairly well, by now, and could recognize his various kinds of silence: peaceful thoughtfulness, cheerful calm, or silent brooding. The latter was rare and always justified.

While a couple of months before she didn’t need to ask him _why_ traversing the Mandalorian sector would be troublesome for him, she was at a loss now.

True: Varchas, the “twilight planet” didn’t have much of a good name around the Galaxy. But then, it barely had a name at all. Cara only heard it mentioned a couple of times in her whole life – the _feeding on dreams_ bit, which didn’t really sound reassuring, and that was that. She hadn’t even seen a Varchaasi. She only knew that they exported highly valuable honey, but she never had spare credits to waste in such trivialities.

When that contract came around, on Nar Shaddaa, they took it because it would’ve been utterly foolish not to. After a few run-ins with Imps, the _Razor Crest_ needed heavy repairs and an all-round inspection. And Motto, as grumpily patient as she was, couldn’t live on credit forever. Their equipment was out of shape too, and Din’s beskar armor needed special and expensive maintenance. Finally, she really wanted to get her hands on a new armor and a Z-6 rotary blaster, just for old times’ sake.

They could use the money, period. High bounties meant high risks, but they both were seasoned warriors and a fearsome team, so she had accepted the offer on the spot. Thinking back about it, Din _definitely_ didn’t seem overjoyed, but he didn’t raise any objection either. After all, he almost always let her handle negotiations, a part of his job he admitted hating with a passion and that, on the contrary, she rather enjoyed. There had been almost _no_ negotiation this time: ten thousand credits dead or alive were worth a trip into an Exogorth’s mouth, as far as she was concerned.

Anyway, they were here now. No use in thinking through _ifs_ and _whys_.

She holstered her blaster and followed Din out of the ship, breathing in the thick, humid air of the tropical forest, then crossed her arm, waiting for the Mandalorian to finish checking up the _Crest’s_ hull. They had taken some minor damage while leaving Nar Shaddaa, when they had been forced to cruise through a thick asteroid field.

“Is she alright?” she asked, hearing some metallic noises coming from the ship’s starboard.

“Mostly,” scoffed Din, sounding uncharacteristically annoyed as he brusquely closed the exterior panel with a thud. “But I’m not sure she can take another hyperjump. Maybe we should ask for repairs here on Varchas.”

He stepped on the ramp again, leaning on his higher leg, and looked her quite unmistakably _not_ in the eye. She was starting to have a feeling for when he actively avoided her gaze, even though from the outside he would just seem to be staring dead ahead in her face. Right now, his gaze wandered somewhere above her shoulders, and he sounded as if he were half-hoping she would disagree with what he'd just said.

“Sounds good to me. The safer, the better,” she answered instead, turning her head towards the Child only to find him already at her feet, a clawed hand grasping at her boot and eyes pinned on Din. “I’m not sure this one is okay with us leaving him alone again, though.”

Din let out one of his theatrical sighs, but she could hear the hint of a smile behind it. “We don’t have much of a choice,” he said, walking up to them both and kneeling to lift the Child up in his arms. He let out a squeal of protest. “C’mon, we won’t be long, you lil’ womprat,” he gruffly tried to soothe him as he put him back into his compartment.

She could hear an almost-full laugh in his voice now. The Child had some powers, alright. But the most remarkable one was how easily he managed to improve Din’s mood, no matter what. Din lightly pinched one of his floppy ears in an endearing gesture, but the Child looked at him with something awfully close to a reproaching scowl.

“I don’t think that worked,” Cara chimed in, unable not to smile at that scene, like every time she saw the two of them interact. Din never bothered hiding his affection towards his newfound son. She didn’t really delve into Mandalorian customs yet, but it was clear to her that hardened, collected warriors didn’t necessarily have to act indifferent with the ones they loved, especially their children. On the contrary, they seemed like fiercely protective parents.

“It never does. Be back soon, _ad’ika_.” He gave one last look at the Child and sealed the compartment, swiftly, as if he didn’t want to dwell too long and risk changing his mind about bringing him with them. “We really _won’t_ be long,” he muttered then, and she couldn’t say if he was just talking to himself, to the Child, or to her.

“Let’s hit the road, then,” she said, nonetheless.

“Let’s.”

They started off, down the _Crest_ ’s ramp and out of the clearing and into the trees. Soon, they were engulfed by the overflowing vitality of those untouched places. It reminded her a bit of Onderon’s violet trees, although the flora looked even more outlandish here.

The forest was lush, full of slender, twisting trees and blooming creepers, and it buzzed with life – so much that Cara found herself wishing she had a beskar helmet herself, instead of swatting aimlessly at the many bugs swarming around them.

“Next bounty we take, is on an ice planet,” she said, trying not to move her lips and swallow a mouthful of faintly glowing gnats. _Ugh_. She could deal with open wounds, gutting enemies, and fighting ferocious aliens, but her relationship with bugs was very… _lady-like_. Something she would never want Din to find out. _Ever_.

Just then, the Mandalorian let out a sharp snort that sounded like one of his disguised chuckles, until she saw him fumbling under the helmet’s chin and whipping his head here and there, puffing out loudly. Cara had to repress a smirk.

“ _Shabla_ flies,” he sputtered, turning his back to her to slightly lift his helmet above the jaw. Cara politely stared elsewhere. The buzzing culprit quickly flittered out in a dazed hoop. “Ice planet it is,” he agreed then, after having set the beskar back on. He activated the watertight seal with a hiss.

“That might be the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while,” Cara teased him, as they kept striding through thickets of blue ferns and dangling purple lianas.

Din just shook his head, but she could tell he was amused at his own display of goofiness. He seemed a little less tense than just a few minutes before, and she took it for a good sign. It was so rare to see him upset, and it only put her on her toes as well.

A deep call broke the humid silence, startling her. Din sharply turned his head towards the sound, a hand going for his rifle, and a four-winged, feathery silhouette loudly took off from the lower branches and darted away. They both relaxed, exchanging a look, then kept on walking towards the warm light barely visible beyond the trees, where the glimmering spires of Taamash raised.

Cara had to admit she was beginning to share Din’s wariness about Varchas. That planet’s hemisphere was now shrouded in an almost eternal twilight, with purplish skies and a dim, dying sun looming just beyond the horizon. A whole rotation there was roughly a standard year, and she felt a sense of oppression at the thought.

Nature had evolved accordingly, and she could see bright green plants slowly wilting away and surrendering to the bluish, nocturnal ones as the sun slipped away: they were in daylight’s autumn. Phosphorescent flowers had already begun to bloom, and their eerie hue deepened every shadow. It felt as if they were walking along the threshold of a dream.

 _They feed on dreams_. What she had heard started to make some sense, now. She didn’t feel _awake_ , right now, more like lingering in a light slumber. Was she dreaming already?

She picked up the pace, realizing she had fallen behind. Din stopped to give her a questioning look. She just _knew_ it was questioning.

“You alright?”

“Of course,” she clipped briskly, without stopping. “Let’s just be quick about this _kriffing_ bounty, will ya? I don’t like it here either.”

§

Taamash had tall, sandstone walls, whose roughness seemed to absorb the slanted sun rays still glimpsing over the horizon. Cara and Din left the city’s main gate behind them: it was more than halfway closed, ready to be shut when the last ray of light would vanish.

The guards, wearing colorful cowls on their heads, greeted them with a nod, then lifted the bright glowering plasma-staffs to grant them passage. Cara couldn’t make out their faces, shrouded by the green-yellow fabric, but they seemed humanoid, although all slightly taller than the average human male.

Wide, crowded streets paved with greenish setts welcomed their steps as they walked towards the city center. Their objective was presumably in the slums or in the cargo zone, but they had to study the surrounding terrain first.

It became immediately clear that giving chase in the narrow, twisting side streets, alleys and walkways curving and intersecting around the spired towers that dotted the city would be a nightmare. That inevitably led to the word _dead_ gaining appeal in the phrase “dead or alive”. Still bodies were unlikely to flee.

Din’s gaze wandered here and there – she could tell by the way his helmet slightly tilted – seemingly without any logic. But she could see the hidden pattern: escape routes, dead ends, vantage points, bottlenecks, and sniper’s nests were all clear as day and visible to her own eyes. They had very different approaches, though, and she knew they’d have to crosscheck their intel once in the nearest Cantina.

They kept observing and mapping, while they strolled among the many Varchaasi who didn’t spare them a second look as if they were invisible. Either they didn’t care for strangers, or they didn’t deem them worthy of their attention. It was hard to tell, with their faces covered up like that and goggles shielding their eyes.

Din could obviously read body language way better than her, being raised as he had been, but right now he seemed unconcerned. He was still on edge, though, way more than he usually was during assignments – his right hand didn’t dare to wander too far from his blaster.

Cara looked around, more intently this time: Taamash was extravagant, no doubt about it, but it didn’t give her a straight feeling of danger. She expected people living in almost eternal sunshine or lack thereof to be total nutcases, but for now, it just looked like an average Outer Rim city.

Tapcafs sold cheap, purplish booze and woven carpets, gaggles of chattering people were scattered all around the marketplace, kids climbed and ran on the lower roofs, giving chase to those four-winged birds they’d spotted in the forest, and mothers scolded them from below in a clicking, warbling language.

A strong honeyed scent permeated the streets, and she glimpsed a plethora of gardens, flowerbeds, and climbing plants engulfing almost every building. Here the leaves were still green, the flowers in full bloom, covering all the existing shades of red, though there were hints of yellow and blue here and there. The perfume was almost overwhelming, along with the constant, unnerving buzzing of bees drunk with nectar. Many Varchaasi homes had beehives in their garden, she noticed, and it was clear that they were deeply cared about. They were the planet’s main source of income, after all.

The whole city was well-illuminated, too, and surely more cheerful than any skid row on any given backwater planet she could think of. She didn’t pay that fact any mind until she realized the complete absence of streetlamps or any other means of lighting.

She slowed her pace, nose pointing towards the purple sky, which only still bore a faint light in that direction. And yet, golden rays shone at their feet, and it felt like only late afternoon. Din noticed her confused gaze, then tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at the nearest spire. She squinted and finally saw them.

 _Mirrors_. Gigantic, lustrous mirrors were mounted at the very top of the towers on every side, bent towards the sun, and following its angle. They reflected beams of light in an intricate pattern above their heads, from tower to tower and then to the ground.

That’s how they were able to catch the sunset’s dying light and give the illusion of a full, warm late autumn afternoon. There was almost no shadow in sight, though: the complex system of mirrors was oriented in such a way as to avoid the tall buildings from projecting any shade.

“Resourceful,” she only said, with a small smirk that still betrayed how inexplicably unsettled she was by that discovery. “What about practical, old-fashioned lightbulbs?”

“They do what they _can_ ,” he ambiguously remarked.

Cara frowned. She was now under the vivid impression that artificial light was actively shunned by Varchaasi. The mirrors almost seemed _ritual_.

But that meant… no, it couldn’t be. Could it? Did they live in _complete darkness_ once the sun dived beyond the horizon?

She looked at the sky: she could make out the faint circumference of a rather big moon. So, maybe, they did have some sort of lighting that the mirrors could amplify during their almost endless night. And still… no electricity, no lights in their homes? How could they live like that?

She broke from those thoughts: why did she even care, actually? They weren’t going to stay on that planet for more than a couple of days, so they wouldn’t even get to see the proper night.

“You ever been here?” she asked Din, suspicious of his ready answer and the bits of information about Varchas he had provided until now.

“No. But I’ve heard stories,” he said, as they began to approach the downtown’s confines. Here, the light was only a tad less bright, with its own sets of reflecting mirrors mounted on lower spires.

“Apparently, you’ve heard way more stories than _I_ did.”

She couldn’t help but sound a little sour. After months of traveling together, she could say without a hint of a doubt that they trusted each other. With their lives and with the Child’s safety, above all, but also in the smaller things. Things as simple as sleeping soundly and unarmed while the other was on guard or sharing a meal back to back without Din making himself scarce and holing up in his bunk or in the cockpit.

Now she felt a wall rise, sturdier than the beskar shielding the Mandalorian’s face. Whatever Varchas stirred in his memory, was either too painful or too secret to share – or he simply didn’t trust her enough yet. It hurt, even though she knew how presumptuous it was to demand so much from him.

However, Din didn’t pick up on her tone, or he ignored it willingly. He just remained silent and she didn’t insist, though she sensed a thin layer of ice settle between them.

“We should head to the spaceport,” she said after a tense while, as they stopped at a crossroads. A huge vine covered the façade of several buildings with its reddish leaves and flowers, spreading a sweet, intense scent that made her dizzy.

“Now?” Din seemed distracted, almost dreamy. For a moment, he didn’t sound like _Din_ at all.

“Yeah, now. Or we can stay here all ‘day’ and gaze at the flower while I get a headache,” she said casually, twisting her nose in distaste. She noticed how he quizzically tilted his helmet sideways and added: “Can’t you smell them?”

He paused, and she heard a light _click_ coming from his helmet. “ _Dank ferrik_ ,” he cursed, with a pitch of surprise in his voice as he sniffed audibly. “I do. It’s…” he stopped and looked for the right word. He always had a hard time with them.

“Exaggerated? They love them flowers, alright.”

Din shook his head, then reactivated the helmet’s filter. “ _Sickening_ ,” he clipped, starting off into the streets again, in what she deemed was the spaceport’s direction.

Cara suddenly started to hope that their bounty would just run into their arms so they could be done with that madness. She couldn’t bear to see Din so… she couldn’t even describe him. _Misplaced_ – partly bitter and partly skittish. Like something could jump from the non-existing shadows and bite him. It was so unlike his usual laid-back yet firm demeanor that she felt out of place as well.

She hesitated, before talking. Then she did and swore to just let it be if she didn’t get a straight answer.

“You sure you’re okay with this job?”

Din stopped dead in his tracks.

“Why?”

“You seem… _off_ ,” she articulated, not wanting to say _worried_.

Din looked at her for a long moment and, for the first time since she knew him, his silence didn’t sound intentional.

“It’s just the lights,” he answered then, half-muttering. “My visor struggles to filter out the glare coming from the mirrors. I’m building a headache too,” he admitted, almost as an afterthought. “We should get moving.”

Cara just nodded and let it go. He was _definitely_ holding something back, but she reminded herself of her own promise: no more bugging him, at least not during the assignment. She would have time to ask him for details later when they would be safe and sound back on the _Crest_.

“Right. Spaceport it is, then.”

§

They stopped at a tapcaf near the small commercial spaceport, where traffic was limited to freighters only. They sat on the outside vine-covered porch, which had a clear view on the few landing pads and stocking warehouses: the whole area was starkly detached from the inhabited neighborhoods, although inside the walls. That stretch of dull, grey permacrete was an eyesore among the warmer colors of the city, and only a thin line of flowerbeds decorated the external perimeter, closed off by a chain-link fence.

No ship was in sight, except for a couple of lean Varchaasi corvettes near the warehouses, probably used for planet-bound transports. And a small starfighter just beside them: rounded, beat-up and with yellow stripes on the bottom, exactly like the one they were looking for.

“You reckon it’s Varan Ghunc’s?” asked Cara, savoring the typical Vaarchasi amber liquor, which burnt her tongue and throat in a pleasant mixture of alcohol and gingerroot.

“Only so many Huttese fighters this far from Nar Shaddaa,” Din said, one arm braced on the plastoid table as he was probably checking the vessel through his visor’s zoom. “It’s gotta be his.”

“So, our job is basically done. We wait, he comes back to his ship, we shoot him.” She shrugged, taking a big sip of her liquor, then nodded towards the nearest rooftop overlooking the spaceport. “Is it in range?”

Din followed her gaze but didn’t seem to share her optimism.

“Barely. It’s more than one klick. It's risky.”

“You never miss.”

“I do,” he replied, bluntly. “The angle is lousy, too. And if I miss, he’s gone… either in his ship and off-planet or into the slums. You’ve seen them, right?”

Cara pursed her lips in a grimace, seeing his reasons and acknowledging they should not take the bounty lightly. Weequays could be nasty when provoked and had a knack for disappearing without a trace, then stab you in the back when you least expected it. They had enough enemies as it was.

“Alright, beskar-brains. What’s your plan?”

“I say we track him down.”

Cara repeatedly tapped her mug’s bottom on the table, then nodded.

“I haven’t seen many off-worlders here. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

“That’s my point. Plus, there's only a couple of space-inns in the city, and Varchaasi are strict about where outsiders should dwell, eat, or sleep in Tamaash. It’s sacred ground for them.”

“Varan is a trafficker,” Cara objected.

“I’m surprised contraband exists at all here,” he said, thoughtfully shaking his head, and oddly not getting what she meant by that statement.

“Spice is always in high demand. And they do have honey, here... there's bound to be a black market if it's so costly as they say.”

“It is,” Din said, without hesitating. “He could be smuggling either of them, but I’m betting on spice. In the night months, at least: they wouldn’t even need to worry about direct light damage.”

“A perfect storage planet,” she considered, prompting a small nod on Din’s side.

“Makes sense. The storage season should be coming up now, and illegal transits as well. Let’s stick to spice contraband and start from there.”

“You don’t think he has contacts here? Some sort of back-street hideout?” she asked, making her point about what she had meant before.

“Maybe. But when I say the Varchaasi are _strict_ , I mean _strict_ ,” he stressed then, discreetly tilting his head sideways towards the street.

She got the hint and nonchalantly took a brief look in that direction. She nearly choked on her drink: one of the Varchaasi guards stood on the sidewalk at attention, staff in hand and goggles fixed on them. He didn’t even try to hide. He just idly stood there, blatantly in plain view. Guarding them.

She turned to Din, unsettled.

“Okay, that’s… _creepy_ , to say the least,” she muttered, half-ashamed that she didn’t notice they'd been followed. She still felt a bit dazed: the strange contrast between the afternoon sunrays and the twilight sky, added to the constant flowery scent, was starting to inhibit her senses. “You’d noticed him?”

“Not until now,” he admitted, slightly annoyed himself. “They’re harmless, though. As long as you don’t damage the mirrors, the flowers or you use artificial lights inside the walls.”

She raised her eyebrows. So, she’d been right about that.

“And if we follow their rules, they’ll let us do our thing no questions asked?” she said then, repressing the urge to cast looks in the guard’s direction.

“I don’t think they’ll mind a dead trafficker. Especially if he smuggles honey. And we are with the Guild, so they’ll want to avoid any trouble.”

“Even though this _isn’t_ Guild business?” Cara feigned indignation.

“They don’t need to know,” he said, and she recognized the way his voice slightly curved upwards when he smiled – or tried not to.

Alright, _that_ was more like her Din. She gulped down the last of her liquor and rested her glass on the table, giving him a devilish smile.

“You ready?”

“ _Oya_ ,” he said assertively, standing to his feet in a swift move as she followed suit.

“Let’s hunt, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know you expected more "Mando angst", but... we'll get there eventually, trust me ;)  
> Have you noticed it? It's 5 chapters, now! I'm giving myself a bit of leeway 'cause I know I won't wrap it up in less than 4 chapters *at least*... and this was supposed to be a one-shot! *sighs*
> 
> NB. This chapter heavily references the game Fallen London/Sunless Sea – simply meaning that some of the concepts and ideas are not mine but derived from their work.  
> This includes the names Varchas and Taamas(h) and the bare concept of mirrors used to deflect sunlight, as well as *part* of the whole "honey motif" which will be fleshed out later in the story (don't forget the mentions in the first chapter!). The rest is made up by me, including the city's various oddities :D  
> I just wanted to pay homage to a poorly known game, 'cause they deserve all the credit for the wonderful world and stories they've created ♥


	3. Penumbra

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I had some plans for this story, then Din and Cara started doing what they wanted and I just let them. Blame it on them :D  
> My goal of wrapping it up in 5 chapters blew up, but I'm hoping to nail it in 6. We'll see...
> 
> Thank you all for the amazing feedback on the previous chapter! I hope I won't disappoint you ♥

Hunting was proving itself way more convoluted than it usually was. Hunting, while in Taamash, meant starting to regret Canto Bight’s filthy, claustrophobic maze of alleys stretching right under its luxurious casinos and betting halls. It was _that_ bad.

The mirror-towers provided light and an impression of cleanliness and security. _Impression_ being the keyword, and hypocrisy being its most direct relative.

Cara quickly understood that “living in the shadows” had a very literal meaning in that city. Everything not touched by the light had an almost impure look and was left to its own devices, far away from the eyes of those lucky enough to live in the mirrors’ golden rays.

Those who weren’t, the ones who had to live in the dim light, looked as derelict as the buildings around them, and it took her a while to even _see_ them, huddled up as they were in the darkest corners. Some of them slightly moved when she walked by, like scared creatures afraid to be hurt. The majority just lay still, their faces veiled by rags, cracked goggles, and worn-out capes.

The smell was sickening too – a mixture of bodily fluids, rotten flowers, and spoiled sweets that almost made her gag. Plus, there was a low, constant buzzing in her ears. There were close to no plants here in the dark, if not for some eerily fluorescent ivy that cast a faint, pinkish glow, and she was too far away from the jumble of gardens and flowerbeds decorating the downtown – and still, she heard the bees. They got louder in some spots, where decrepit doors and archways opened like jaws into the tenements' bellies.

She started to think that Din might have been very wrong about contraband being close to non-existent here on Varchas. Those surroundings and environment resembled in every way the more familiar spice labs they had burst in occasionally to retrieve a quarry. She knew what a makeshift spice lab looked like, and surely there were cleaner and less disturbing places – especially when spice spiders were involved.

But she wasn’t sure a Varchaasi honey lab would have looked much better, since that priced substance seemed nothing like the simple sweetening she grew up to know, at least judging from the mystic reverence the inhabitants held for it. She doubted its processing was even remotely similar to the one she had learned on the schoolbooks as a kid.

Her sense of unease grew with every step. As she hastily approached the alley’s exit, a moan escaped one of the living heaps crammed on the sidewalk. She almost drew her blaster, flinching and breaking out in an icy sweat. She was surprised and then unsettled when she met the man’s eyes, lacking the traditional goggles that shielded them. And for good reason: they were almost completely white, if not for the tiny speckle of his pupils, now dilating in his cloud-like iris like a black hole as he looked at her.

Just then, she realized he wasn’t looking at her _at all_. His eyes were glassy, fixed on nothing but thin air as he mumbled something over and over again, a garble of words barely distinguishable:

_“… it’s not what it seems. It’s not what– it’s not what it– awake don’t sleep awake don’t sleep don’t sleep don’t sleep they– they steal them they– don’t sleep they eat them– it’s not what it seems they eat them…”_

_They feed on dreams_. A shiver crawled up her spine, sinking its icy fingers at the back of her head. She stepped back, almost staggering, and the man went back to curl on the ground, seemingly lifeless if not for his feeble murmuring.

She was now sorely regretting the decision of leaving the main, well-lit streets to have a peek in the slums, just in case she got lucky and spotted a suspicious Weequay trafficker. She got nightmare fuel instead, and she hurried back towards the light, trying to get a grip on herself already. Her legs kept feeling like the jelly ration cubes she used to chew on Endor, so she just decided to ignore her body acting up. It was only some random nutcase hobo who probably liked to scare the shit out of passersby.

She still drew a relieved breath when she finally stepped into the golden halo of the mirrors again. She didn’t look back and kept on walking towards the space-inn. She could see its sign just a few dozen meters away, crammed between a florist and a honey shop. She almost grimaced: was there anything else other than _those_ , in that city?

“Mando, I’ve got the suburbs inn in sight,” she said into her wrist comlink, trying to sound unfazed. “What about you?”

There was a long pause, which was not unusual when they spoke in person, but rather strange when they were apart. Din always picked up and answered immediately: he knew how crucial fast communications were. She frowned, and could not deny having a bad feeling about it – that city was getting to her, alright.

“Mando? Do you copy?”

“I copy,” he finally answered, through a series of ragged breaths that made her freeze on the spot. “I think I just lost him.”

“ _What?_ You found Varan?”

He just kept panting loudly, adding to her worry. Mando had incredibly good endurance, and she’d rarely heard him as breathless as he was now. Only once actually, but she wasn’t going to let that memory seep out _now_. “I think so,” he managed to say then, more clearly.

“You _think?_ ”

“I’m not sure I even had him.”

Cara paused, furrowing her brow and looking in the general direction where the other space-inn was.

“Mando, this place is a mess as it is. I don’t need you to become even _more_ cryptical.”

She heard his distinctive, feeble sigh on the other side of the comms – the sign he wasn’t in a life-threatening situation.

“Look, there’s probably a lot of… spice fumes or whatever in my area. The helmet’s filter only staves off the smell and I think they– they might be getting to my head.”

It took her a moment to realize what he meant. In another situation, she would’ve laughed, but right now she just managed an incredulous, nervous half-cramped smile.

“Wait. Are you _high?_ ”

He paused, but she could hear his now steadier breathing on the open comlink.

“I don’t know. It’s all kind of a blur.”

Every inclination to make fun of him vanished: he sounded confused, almost _sleepy_. She tightened her hand into a fist, trying to think straight on his behalf, even though the man’s voice kept whispering in her ears. _Don’t sleep_.

“I’m coming to you,” she stated, without further ado. She glanced at the datapad on her wrist, where Din’s position blipped in red. He was just about a klick away. “Get out from the spice quarters and… I don’t know, find a quiet and private place to take a breath of fresh air out of your bucket. And stay sharp,” she added, forcefully.

There was a static hesitation from his side, and the sound of shuffling feet, as if he was looking around himself.

“I think I could… yeah. I’ll be on the roofs. Tell me when you’re heading up, so I can–.”

“Sure,” she just said, knowing what he meant. She would never sneak up on him. “Hold tight, I’m on my way.”

§

She found him on the roof of an abandoned condo, sitting cross-legged at the very center, where he could be invisible from both the streets and any prying eyes.

He seemed unscathed, even though he sat tensely, with palms propped up on his knees, his back hunched and his head all but lolling forward. A humongous mirror from a nearby tower cast a wide ray of light directly on that area, chasing away every shadow.

“There you are,” she sighed in relief, lowering herself on the ground in front of him.

He shuffled uncomfortably, acknowledging her with a slight nod and nothing more, visor fixed on his feet. She scowled at him: that was not the time to put up the “tough warrior act”. She was just about to tell him that, when he raised his head, this time actually looking at her.

“Sorry. I was talking to the kid through the private comlink. Just needed to know he was okay.”

She softened her gaze at once, giving him a tiny smile despite the situation.

“Is the _Crest_ still in one piece?”

“Well, the communication array works. Not sure about the rest, though. I did most of the talking.”

She scoffed, cherishing that moment of lightness before turning serious again.

“Did you manage to catch your breath?”

He nodded. “Yes, but just very briefly. I’m not so keen on showing my face with the Guards watching us.”

“Right,” she suddenly remembered, shooting a glance around. They could be spying on them from anywhere. Their very mirrors looked like eyes, and it only made her jumpier. “So, what the _kriff_ just happened? I walked the whole way here and there’s no spice dregs or exhaust fumes down there.”

He tilted his helmet in that quizzical way of his. “You sure?”

“Do I look high?”

He stared at her for a moment, missing the irony and actually checking that out for himself. “No. Do I look… I mean, do I–”

“Not as much as before. You’re still slurring a little, though,” she promptly answered, avoiding him the awkwardness of that question. “Just tell me what happened.”

He shook his head, baffled.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted then, making her squint at him. “I saw Varan. He was coming out of the inn just as I approached. I was in plain sight, he spotted me and made a run for it.”

“Why on Malachor didn’t you call me _immediately?_ ”

“I was about to, but then he darted in the alleys, and…” he took a breath, “… and then he wasn’t there anymore. He just _wasn’t_ there.”

“He knows the city, Mando, he knows how to–”

“I was _right_ on his heels. I turned the corner just a split sec after him and he’d already vanished into thin air.” He fell silent and she could almost hear him gulping. “I’m starting to doubt he was even there in the first place.”

Another shiver ran down her spine, and she stiffened in an attempt at concealing it. He seemed way too absorbed in his thoughts to notice, though.

“What do you mean?”

He fidgeted on the spot, clearly raking his brain for the right words.

“I saw _things_ that shouldn’t have been there.”

“Like _what?_ ”

“I said _I don’t know_ ,” he repeated, sounding vexed, angry, and shaken at once. “I thought I was dreaming, I–” He fell silent and reached for his helmet’s forehead in an instinctive move as if to contain a wave of dizziness. He noticed how she was blankly staring at him, and quickly regained composure.

She just shook her head, placing a hand on his arm to straighten his posture, since he was leaning sideways. She tried not to dwell on the “dreaming” part, after what that disquieting man had said, but it was clear to her that Din had some sort of hallucination. She wasn’t about to ask him about it. The sole fact that he felt the urge to call the Child spoke volumes to her, and she didn’t want to hear any details. It wouldn’t change what happened and wouldn’t make Din or her feel any better.

“You okay now?” she just asked, still managing to make the question sound like a threat, daring him to lie.

He _looked_ straight at her from behind his visor, but faltered when he spoke:

“I– no. I don’t feel _okay_. But I don’t feel that bad either. I can press on.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said without thinking, eliciting a strong dissenting nod from him.

“It’s ten thousand credits, Cara. When are we _ever_ gonna strike another deal like this one? We need the money, and all that comes with it. Laying low, lower our guard for a while. Finding a stable safe place, maybe. I’m not getting any younger, and the Child won’t become a self-sufficient teenager overnight.”

Cara blinked at that spurt of words, not really processing them and trying to remember the last time Din had spoken more than a couple of short sentences at once. She couldn’t, and her bewilderment must have painted itself on her face, because Din let out a muffled sigh, steadying himself with a hand on hers, still gripping his forearm.

“I’m… rambling, right?”

He sounded one step shy from _embarrassed_.

“You are. It’s okay though. I could get used to this more talkative version of you,” she managed to smile, although somehow sadly. Din had never, _ever_ expressed any regrets or doubts regarding his decision to take care of the Child. Nor had he ever wished something for himself, much less quiet and peace. Now she felt as if she had just taken a peek into his mind without his consent. He seemed vulnerable, for once, and she knew he would never have wanted to come off like that – not even at death’s door, let alone now. “We oughta finish this job fast, then. I don’t know how, but this planet’s playing mind tricks on us. I just know it.”

Din just nodded, and she could feel his effort in not talking too much again.

“You think… it’s the flowers?”

“It’d make sense. They’re everywhere.”

Again, she still had a distinct feeling that he wasn’t telling her everything. For some obscure reason, he knew more about that planet than her. But then again, that wasn’t the right time to press him.

“Listen, new plan. As much as I wouldn’t want to believe it, you probably hallucinated Varan.” Din looked sideways but didn’t deny it. “So we should still be in the clear. We check the spaceport, see if his fighter is still there, and we ambush him from the inside.”

“The Guards won’t ever let us set foot…”

“The Guards can try and catch us if they can.” She could sense his dissent seeping through the beskar. “We’ll be stealthy, just as you like to be.”

“Says the Dropper.”

She just gave him a sly smile. “Trust me on this one. We stick together this time, and you tell me if it gets _too_ weird. Maybe you’re just more sensitive.”

“I’m not _sensitive_.”

She rolled her eyes. “Maker help me, I didn’t mean it like _that_. You breathe in a closed-off helmet, for _kriff’s_ sake, and you still got affected way worse than me.”

He fell silent, ruminating on that observation.

“You have a point,” he admitted then, though grudgingly. “You feeling alright, then?” he asked, with a drop of concern made more evident by his still unsteady voice.

“Like a Nabooian daisy,” she quipped, deciding she was definitely _not_ going to tell him about her weird encounter. “C’mon, let’s find that scumbag, get our bounty, and then take a long, well-deserved vacation in some resort on Dorumaa. Drinks are on me,” she finally said, getting up to her feet and offering him a helping hand. She thought he might refuse it, but he grabbed it tighttly instead, hoisting himself up and letting her take some of his weight.

He staggered but quickly regained a straight posture. He shot her a glance, then started off down the roof without another word, suddenly darkening. Or sulking. She followed him closely, almost sensing the gloomy embarrassment he was radiating. A Mandalorian knocked down by some flowers... she could see how hard it would be for him to live that down.

“I’m allergic to Jogan fruits, if it makes you feel better.”

He just sighed.

§

“You weren’t joking about security,” Cara muttered, as they walked along the elevated wooden walkway nearest to the spaceport. He half-shrugged, without a word. They could almost feel one of the Guard’s breath on their neck as they traversed the middle levels of the city, trying to spy out a way that would lead them to the landing grounds.

The fence enclosing them looked plasma-charged, the only means of electrification and energy that seemed to be allowed in town. That meant certain death if they tried to cut through or vault over it. The jetpack would have drawn too much attention since the spaceport stretched in the middle of a barren, heavily guarded area, so Din had decided not to lose time retrieving it from the _Crest_. It was half-busted anyway after his stunt down a crevasse on Kajimi.

The Guards had started to tail them more closely as soon as they neared the area, as if able to read their intentions. She didn’t want to linger on that thought: the situation was already disturbing enough as it was.

Din had mustered his strength back and now walked briskly, probably by sheer willpower fueled by stubborn pride, but she could still hear a strain in his voice when he talked. She, on the other hand, had started to feel that eerie dream-like sensation every now and then, as she did back in the forest. She tried to keep it a bay every time it threatened to emerge, but it was distracting, nonetheless. Scary, even.

She had to keep her head in the game, especially with the unspoken risk of Din keeling over at a moment’s notice. The flowers were scarcer up there, and their scent only faintly noticeable, so he was faring definitely better than in the lower levels, but she still kept a close eye on him.

They kept walking across the suspended bridges and walkways connecting bazaars, souks, and outdoor cantinas, trying to roughly follow the spaceport’s perimeter as they searched for a weak spot. The Huttese fighter was still in its place, but they had to be quick: no way to tell how much longer their quarry would stick on Varchas. They’d agreed on putting a beacon in his ship as a back-up plan, in case he managed to flee and make it to the jump point.

Their employer didn’t have any tracking fob for Varan Ghunc, so they’d had to make do with his chain code and bounty puck to track him down to Varchas – they didn’t want to start from scratch again, should the worst happen. Right now, Cara wavered between wanting to capture him here and now and taking the fight elsewhere, in a more familiar and inviting environment. Like _Hoth_ , for example. Ice planet, right there.

They skirted around the spaceport, pausing every now and then to survey the surroundings, but Din only shook his head every time he tried to find a breach through his visor's sight. She kept analyzing the rooftops nearest to their objective, but they were either too low or too high or too far away to offer a clear line of sight. They cleared the third side of the fence with no luck, their expressions clouding over with every step they took.

She was just about to call it a day and do justice to her past as a shock-trooper – thus suggesting to blow down the main entrance guns ablaze – when they turned around a corner and she spotted their glimmer of hope. And it was _actually_ glimmering.

“Mando, on your right,” she nudged him, jutting her chin in that direction.

Din followed her gaze, stared for a few seconds, then turned to her again.

“A honey refinery?”

“Whatever it is, it’s our ticket in. See?”

Cara arched a brow at his flat reaction and stepped closer to the railway, keeping her eyes trained on the small facility just adjacent to the spaceport. It was a squared, yellowing two-stories building, with no windows and a dozen little mirrors jutting out from its roof, as if to shield it from the light. Its back seemed to merge with one of the port's warehouses, even though they couldn’t see it clearly from there. Maybe there was a gate in between or a covered passage. What looked like a secondary entrance opened out in a luxuriant, walled-in garden that seemed to belong to one of the lower mirror-towers.

“Look at the garden. The wall’s not that high. Or we could just make our way through the tower.”

She turned to him, sporting a smug grin, but was met with a total lack of enthusiasm, evident in his rigid posture and the way his helmet was slightly pointing downwards, as if looking at their objective from below.

“That’s sacred ground for them,” he stated then, firmly.

“We’ll be in and out in a minute, they won’t even notice,” she shrugged, unconcerned, but couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Why are you so worried about their cuckoo laws, anyway? It wouldn’t be the first time we bend the rules.”

She regretted asking in the very moment she finished the sentence: Din whipped his head to face her, and then spoke in a stern, icy tone she only ever heard him use with his bounties:

“It is their Creed, and it is their home. I’d be pissed off too if someone tried to break into our Covert just to ‘bend the rules’ in their favor.”

Cara felt a twist in her gut at those harsh words, and evaded his gaze, not really knowing how to reply to that. It was either insulting his beliefs and putting his feet back on the ground, where morally grey choices had to be made, or letting it go and having him question their every action. It could get dangerous, especially in a pinch, and they couldn’t take any more risks.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean we should disrespect them or vandalize their temple. You know I don’t. We’ll just pass through. Like we did when we took shelter into your Covert’s tunnels,” she added, reluctant to bring it up, but knowing he could not retort to that. “No harm done.”

Din slightly swayed on his feet, taking in those words. He wavered for a split second, then gave her a small nod.

“I know what you mean. It just doesn’t sit well with me,” he said, in an audible effort to tone down his outburst. She could hear a nervous puff of breath from behind his helmet, as if he was feeling under pressure. “We’ll have to lose the Guards first,” he said, suddenly all business again, with a quick movement of his helmet indicating their exact position behind them.

“You take the high road… quite literally,” she said with the hint of a smile, discreetly gesturing at the labyrinth of walkways around them. “I’ll be below since I’m more flower-resistant.”

Din tilted his head backwards, and she could swear she heard him groan.

“You’re never letting that go, are you?”

“Never,” she deadpan confirmed, glad to hear a lighter note in his voice again.

“In and out,” he stressed then, looking straight at their imposing, glistening objective and then back at her.

Cara nodded. “In and out.”

 _Let this be easy_ , she thought, as they split up and headed for the tower. She couldn’t wait to finally get off that planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put some additional tags: check them out!
> 
> Yes, this will get Darker Than You Expected.


	4. The Tower of Light (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello there!  
> This chapter took a while... sorry for the long wait, but I'm caught up between writing my bachelor dissertation and preparing for my master's admission test, so I hardly find the time to write.
> 
> A big thank you to all the wonderful people who left a comment, bookmark, or kudos on the story: as always, you make my day! My main goal is to entertain you, and if I manage to do so, even for those few minutes you spend reading, I feel fulfilled ♥
> 
> Now, back to our favorite space morons!
> 
> *WARNING*: mild violent descriptions, blood. To be honest, it's nothing TOO graphic, I hope, but as a non-native speaker I might perceive the words/scenes differently, so I'm putting the warning just to be safe :)

Reaching the tower proved to be distressingly easier than she had expected.

After years spent dropping from battered ships onto occupied planets at a blaster’s width from death, Cara had come to distrust anything that came with no difficulties. So, now that everything seemed all too quiet, she gave in to the old habit of biting her inner cheek and lips. She thought she had lost it after her “early retirement”. And there it was again.

She kept nervously waiting for her companion under an archway wreathed in shadows. After a lot of twisting deviations through the lower souk's narrow halls, she'd managed to lose the Guard, with the help of a "borrowed" colorful mantle she had taken from one of the stalls, as to conceal her distinctive, warrior-like frame and attire.

She was still wrapped up in it, with a hem draped in the shape of a makeshift hood over her head. A simple deception, but it had done the trick. From afar, she looked just like any other Varchaasi woman wrapped up in their long cloaks and decorated garments. Too bad for the goggles, but she just had to keep her head bowed. She had no milky, creepily void eyes to hide, anyway. She blinked to drive that image away, even though it felt ingrained in her retinas.

She bit her lip again drawing droplets of blood, as she combed the alley with restless eyes. It was all but deserted, with just a few inattentive passersby who didn’t even notice her. The mirror-tower rose just across the street, its reddish walls decorated with arabesque tiles and variously shaped mirrors. Some were round, others more angular; a few were actually several mirrors joined together, in order to reflect the light in more than one direction at once in blinding sunbursts. Each one of them was enclosed in a golden frame, often molded in the shape of vines or ivy.

The whole structure looked decadent and solemn at once. It looked _watchful_ , too. She couldn’t shake that feeling from her shoulders: being so close to it, she was starting to regret her idea of traversing the tower, and Din’s concern about respecting others’ beliefs only played a small role in that change of mind. It just didn’t add up. She couldn’t think of a worship place with no entrances, but she hadn’t been able to find any. Any _visible_ one, at least. The tower seemed impregnable, almost like a defensive structure or a stronghold

She also discarded the option of climbing over the garden wall: there was plasma barbed wire all around its top and they definitely weren’t desperate enough to half-electrocute themselves in order to reach their goal. She had spotted a single possible way in during her fast recon around the base: some of the bigger mirrors looked moveable, and one of them had been slightly left ajar. There seemed to be a hollow behind it, maybe a window or an air vent. She prayed for a window, but they rarely got so lucky.

The spot was a good four meters high too, so they would have to somersault their way in from a vantage point – probably the roofs across the street. That's where the jetpack would've come in handy, but _of course,_ Din had to wreck it almost beyond repair – all the more reason to cash in those ten thousand credits.

Where in Malachor was he, anyway? The twenty minutes were almost up, and she couldn't hide from the Guards forever. She even doubted she'd actually lost them, and feared they were still stalking her from the very shadows she was using as a cover.

She quickly glanced behind her, at the dead-end street rotting with trash and heaps of petals. A trickle of reddish sludge slowly flew down the gutter and vanished into a bronze manhole a step away from her. The alley opened up in a small courtyard where a few peeling doors yawned. They were shut, now, but she could easily picture unknown figures with their ears pressed against the wood and their eyes prying from the keyhole. She braced her hands on her elbows, almost shrugging to herself. She’d never felt so paranoid, not even during the long nights on Endor, back when the faintest rustle could mean certain death.

Right now, all she heard was the buzzing, but she couldn't tell if it was a mere suggestion or not. Sometimes it felt like it was coming from inside her head. She scolded herself: no more creepy thoughts involving _bugs_ , she decided, shooting a burning glance at a bee harmlessly flying about and minding her own business. She was drunk with nectar and covered in a fine red powder. It made her stomach churn for no apparent reason, and she averted her eyes.

The sound of approaching footsteps made her tense again, then relax when she heard the faint metal clinking accompanying them. _At last_.

Din slithered beneath the archway without hesitation, having spotted her either through the datapad, his thermic vision, or straight keen senses and intuition. He looked and walked way steadier than before, to her relief.

“Suits you,” he said with the hint of a jest, jutting his helmet's chin at the motley piece of cloth engulfing her. She scowled at him.

“How's your flower problem?” she dryly retorted, daring him to add any further comment on her unusual, definitely not-so-warrior-like attire.

“Manageable,” he just nodded, dropping the joke. “I tinkered with the filter's settings. I get less oxygen, but I also breathe in close to no pollen and spores.”

“Whatever works for you. As long as you don't pass out on me,” she clipped, a bit too harshly.

He stiffened, taken aback, and she could swear he blinked in perplexity under the beskar. She sighed.

“You have _no idea_ how much I'm starting to loathe this place,” she clarified, redirecting her outburst away from him.

“You spotted the air vent?” he just changed the subject, taking in her half-apology with a nod.

“Yeah, and I really miss your flying contraption right now. Feel like doing a couple of acrobatics?”

Din shot a look at the window, tilting his head back to get a better angle. Then, without a word, he marched into the street.

 _There he goes_ , she thought. He hated him when he didn't bother to explain, and just acted. It was an attitude she herself was only starting to tweak, being used to be alone, but she was sure to be way more readable than him since, _well_ , she didn’t have a beskar bucket on her head.

She followed him, dropping the now useless cloak and hoping no citizen chose to stroll down that way right now. Din halted just below the designated mirror, then took a half step back and aimed his vambrace at it. The grappling hook shot out… and missed the mirror’s inner frame. It was about a half-meter too short.

“ _Dank farrik_ ,” Din cursed, as the hook bounced off the wall with a clank and the rope almost tangled itself on the structures before uselessly falling at his feet. It automatically rolled back in its slot, whipping the air. Din slightly changed the angle to try again.

“Wait,” Cara stopped him and positioned herself with her back against the tower’s wall, then motioned Din to come forward. “C’mon, the line is too short, I’m giving you a boost,” she simply said, slightly bending her knees and locking her hands together to form a foothold.

Din looked tentative. “I’m not exactly _light_.”

Cara huffed through a smile. She always found it endearingly funny when he tried to be all gentlemanly with her, even though he knew they both were warriors.

“Mando, I dragged your senseless, full-armored body out of a battlefield once: I think I can manage a piggyback,” she said, with a wink.

Din shrugged and didn’t object further. A few seconds later he was standing with his boots on her shoulders, trying to aim the hook at the vent again. And alright, he _was_ heavy like a bantha, but he was also trying to lift off some weight by leaning against the wall. And at least he tried not to move _too much_. She kept her eyes on the alley, expecting to be caught red-handed at any moment. When the whipping sound of the line cut the air, followed by the the pleasing, metallic clang of the hook meeting its target, she finally released her breath.

“Gotcha,” Din exulted, grabbing the line with both hands to test its hold, then firmly planting one foot against the wall as he cautiously began the ascent.

Cara felt the pressure lift from her shoulders and she briefly crouched down to give her knees a break. She glanced above her: Mando had already reached the mirror and was now carefully lifting it to uncover the passage. The ray of light it reflected moved accordingly, and she just hoped they didn’t keep track of where they were pointing. Surprisingly, it was actually a window: a simple hole revealed itself beneath the polished surface. She glimpsed a golden hue coming from the inside.

Mando peeked over the window frame and made sure that the hook still had a secure grip for her. He detached the line from its housing, letting it dangle below, gave her an O.K. sign, then swiftly vaulted over and disappeared inside. Cara stepped back a bit to build a fair run-up, then wall-jumped to reach the rope, thanking her sturdy leather gloves when it didn’t cut right through her palms. She grunted as she began to climb as fast as possible, now hearing approaching voices below her.

Someone shouted and she climbed faster, pulling up the rope and vaulting over the window without even looking. She trusted Din to give her a signal in case of danger. She let loose of the sill and dropped inside, safe and sound.

The first thing that popped into her mind, as soon as she set foot on the amber polished floor inside the Tower and glanced around, was _This won’t be easy_.

Din looked at her with his helmet bent in a peculiar, wiseass angle that could only mean _I told you so_.

She almost didn’t notice him, too concerned with what her eyes were seeing – or _not_ seeing. Some semblance of logic, for example. The corridor they dropped in was weirdly curved, downhill, and painfully golden in its every detail, making it hard to tell where the floor ended and the walls started, and vice versa. There was no furniture, no furnishings: only fake pillars denting the walls without any recognizable pattern. Ivy branches were ingrained on every flat surface and spherical mirrors dangled from the ceiling, reflecting light from an invisible source.

She stared at that golden galore, dazzled by the absence of any other color.

“This… was maybe a bad idea,” she finally said in a whisper.

“Yes,” Din tersely replied, turning on the spot and looking for any landmark that could point them towards the exit. “ _Dank farrik_ , I can’t even _think_ in here,” he gave up with a frustrated snort, and she saw him fumble with his visor's settings. Those lights must have been driving him crazy.

“Downhill bodes well,” she said, tapping her knuckles on his pauldron in that direction, both a calming and prompting gesture. He seemed overly nervous again, but he nodded all the same, following her input. They both drew their blasters at the same time as if reading each other’s mind: they were not safe, there.

The corridor didn’t really go downhill, or at least not for long. It suddenly went uphill with no rhyme or reason, and it took them a half-minute to realize it would lead them nowhere, only higher. And they definitely wanted to reach the tower’s _bottom_. They quickly backtracked, only to find themselves in a wide, circular hall they certainly didn’t cross before. Vines patterns engulfed the walls, and there was a faint whiff of jasmine in the air, but no flowers in sight.

They exchanged a puzzled look, the grip on their blasters becoming tighter by the minute.

“We didn’t…”

“No,” Cara finished, shaking her head as her gaze tried to identify any familiar detail. “We didn’t even turn any corner.”

“What _is_ this place?” Din muttered, through gritted teeth.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” she replied, pointing her blaster at each of the four doorways opening on the hall. “Which way?”

“ _Rangir_ , I doubt it makes a difference,” he said, fast, suddenly striding towards the closer one.

Cara didn’t understand much Mando’a, but that word didn’t sound like a compliment and she’d never heard him use it before. Which only meant he was more upset than she’d ever seen him. She followed him without raising any objection, their boots squeaking on the perfectly smooth floor.

She felt a kind of nasty pressure building inside her head, making it hard for her to concentrate, so she gladly left the lead to her partner, hoping the ache would get better as her eyes adjusted to the annoying glow. She still heard the buzzing, but now that they were indoors it could only be her mind playing tricks on her. It seemed to get louder, giving her the impression of having bees inside her head. She felt a cold wave pass through her body at that thought, and willed herself to ignore it.

As they took one random turn and flight of stairs after the other, their slight anxiety started to become palpable, expanding around them like an oppressive bubble, growing bigger and more solid with every misstep and dead-end they encountered. Cara felt her focus waver, and Din’s movements became jerky and unpredictable, stopping and turning around without any apparent logic, like a caged animal.

The whole tower was a diabolical maze that defied any physical law she could think of, and many she couldn’t even picture in her head. The halls twisted and turned and followed paths that shouldn’t have been able to be enclosed in the limited walls. If it had seemed huge from the outside, it was gigantic on the inside.

Their plan of “simply traversing it from entrance A to exit B” went up in smoke. There was no way to simply walk into a straight line, nor did they ever manage to go downstairs. They went up instead, up and up and up and finally down for a couple of floors, with no idea if they were really getting any closer to the bottom.

The stairs had no logic whatsoever, nor did the walls, or the floors, or the ceiling. It seemed like a mad architect had shredded a thousand different projects into pieces, then shuffled them all together and randomly stitched them back without looking if they were even facing up or not.

And it was all so bright that it hurt their eyes: a golden glow permeated every corner of the structure. No shadow in sight. Amber panels covered the walls and floors, with a myriad of nuanced speckles that refracted the light in a constant glimmer, like honey waves endlessly rippled by the wind. It was like being trapped in a honeycomb.

They didn’t even know how much time had passed. It felt like a dozen minutes, but it could very well be hours. Not that looking at the sky out the windows would help, but they didn’t even find any other they could escape from. It was as if the whole structure was rearranging and reshuffling itself under their steps, hiding all possible ways out.

“For _kriff_ ’s sake,” Cara muttered when they walked up the umpteenth dead end. No doors, no passageways to even justify its existence: just a plain, solid wall. It was even hard to tell if it _really_ was a dead-end or not: the amber was so polished it looked like a mirror and it warped shapes and distances. They had to walk up all the way until they could touch it, to make sure there was no other way.

“Maybe I should switch to heat vision, at least I could see _something_ ,» Din uncharacteristically complained, sounding vexed as he kept tinkering with the external commands of his helmet. He sighed in relief. «Great, this should do: now it’s all grey.»

She gestured towards the helmet, craving for anything able to shield her eyes from the glow. «Do you have a spare one?»

«Not for sale,» he deadpanned, and she could feel a tense smirk behind those words.

They were bickering way more than usual, and they were well aware of it. But the silence was deafening, and it seemed to encompass their brains in a golden, shimmering light. It was almost _alive_ , and it pressed against their eardrums as if it wanted to pierce through them. Beyond it, she could only hear the annoying buzzing – which didn’t help. It was getting louder now.

She tried to ignore it as she’d been doing so far, but after a while her head started to pound with every heartbeat, building pressure behind her eardrums. She pressed a hand to her temple, but the feeling didn’t subside. A wave of nausea hit her stomach. In a matter of minutes, she could practically feel her skull rattling under her skin.

“Can we take a break?” she burst out, without actually meaning to. Her breathing crackled in her ears. Din turned to her immediately, alarmed.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, but… I think I’m dehydrated,” she lied and hoped it was true, as well.

“I could use some water myself,” Din nodded, without turning his visor and gaze from her. “Let’s find a more sheltered place,” he said, gesturing to the corridor they were standing in: too exposed, from both sides, should someone actually try to catch them by surprise. She’d expected tight security, but there wasn’t the faintest trace of any living beings. She wanted to think it was good news, but she just made her all the more suspicious.

They settled in yet another completely empty room, randomly opening in the corridor. This one had a single entrance and they sat down in the furthest corner, keeping an eye on it. Cara avoided touching the wall, and Din followed suit, then she gulped down some water from her canteen, even though she didn’t feel thirsty at all. It burned her throat like alcohol, and she stifled a cough, pretending she just choked on the liquid. Maybe she was dehydrated after all?

Din was watching her closely, pretending not to and emanating concern and nervousness from every pore of his beskar. He too sipped some water from his flask, which had a peculiar spout, bent in such a way to slip under the helmet without fully removing it. She averted her eyes, even though she still caught a glimpse of his jawline as he tilted his head back. But the very fact he trusted her enough to do some maneuvers involving the helmet around her meant that he was okay with that, as long as she didn't willingly _look_ at him.

He'd mellowed his restrictions a little, during those months, even though he still adhered to his Creed's tenets. That's what living in a cramped space like the _Crest_ had led to. One could only have so much privacy unless you huddled up in the sleeping compartment and shut the door.

She lingered on those thoughts: they were reassuring, and maybe they could help her calm the unhealthy, frenzied pounding of her heart. The _Razor Crest_ felt like home by now, and Din and the Child felt like some sort of gained family. She tried to picture the ship, and the moment they’d finally set foot on it and leave that planet, but her head kept throbbing. The world around seemed to fade with every heartbeat.

Din offered her his flask, and she only noticed when he put it under her nose. She caught a whiff of fruity, alcoholic _tihaal_. She refused it, thinking that her mind was blurry enough as it was. She bit the inside of her cheek, in the same spot she had nagged before. This _wasn’t_ normal. She was never anxious during missions, no matter how dangerous: fear of death was only a means to preserve her life, not a force strong enough to dictate her thoughts and actions.

She narrowed her eyes. _Inhale. Three heartbeats. Exhale_. Just like on Endor – before the fights, that’s when fear always threatened to take command and send her to death – like so many of her comrades. She stiffened, willing her mind away from those thoughts. She took a sip of water.

She suddenly grimaced, feeling her stomach burn, and for a second she thought she had inadvertently accepted Din's _tihaal_. She absent-mindedly pressed a hand to it, trying to stifle what had to be a nervous cramp. She froze when her fingers met a damp spot on her vest. It stuck to her skin. She lowered her gaze and felt her throat tighten in terrified disbelief.

She was _bleeding_. And there was a cut– no, a tear– a _gash_ ripping her belly open from side to side. She could see the vivid red of her own flesh, and the slimy, sickening glint of her bowels. She just stared, petrified, then let out an involuntary, high-pitched whimper as pain blossomed in her middle and her body, red-hot, cutting deep into her guts like a vibroblade.

“Cara?”

Din’s voice came through walls of red water, as she frantically compressed the wound with both, trembling hands, feeling her insides move as the gash gaped open, horrifyingly deep as waves of blood poured from it. She bent over, racked by pain and fear as her mouth stopped working, only letting out rasping, pathetic breaths.

She felt herself falling, and her vision blackened. _How did this happen?_ How _did_ – it was _impossible_ , how– she was fine, she was– it wasn’t important, it didn’t matter ‘cause she was _bleeding to death_. She could feel it, could feel the wound sapping her energy away as her life spilled over, soaking her clothes a deep red. A vicious tingling got hold of her, like bugs crawling under her skin.

She rose her eyes to Din, seeking help – _any help_ – anything to make this _stop_ – and saw him through a veil of mist: he was half-propped on one hand, still sitting, the other hand placed on her back. He didn’t move. Why wasn’t he doing _something?_ Couldn’t he see she was _dying?_

She tried reaching out to him, but her body gave in and she collapsed on the floor, writhing in feeble spasms as she tried to keep herself together with a hand pressed on her displaced bowels.

“ _Cara!_ ” the shout clashed against her ears and she felt him kneel beside her, near the pool of her own blood. “Cara? Cara! What’s wrong? Hey, look at me!” Gloved hands abruptly shook her shoulders and the pain stabbed her more fiercely, firing blaster shots through her middle.

“… it _hurts_ ,” she managed to breathe out, even though it felt like a yell to her heaving lungs. She breathed in a mouthful of blood and gasped for air.

The shaking stopped at once, but the grip on her shoulders stayed. “ _Nothing_ is hurting you. Do you hear me? You’re _fine_.”

He paused for a second and Cara wished he kept on talking; she could feel her life slowly seeping from her, painting the amber floor a thick, deep red. The flow had soaked Din’s knees already, and she could feel her own face bathed in it. Insects were swarming her body from the inside, devouring her – angry bees buzzed into her head. She blindly fumbled for Din’s hand in a desperate move, strangling his fingers slippery with her own blood; she kept the other one on the wound, uselessly trying to contain the hemorrhage.

“Cara, you’re not hurt. Can you hear me? You’re _not_ hurt, it’s not real. It’s not real, it’s just–”

“It’s _real_ ,” she all but sobbed, as flames built up into her stomach, charring her flesh and bones from the inside. She remembered how much it had hurt that one time – and now it hurt _more_ , it cut her breath away.

“Cara, listen to me: _it is not real_ ,” Din almost shouted again, sending a wave of static through his vocoder. He kept talking to her, but she only heard far-away echoes rumbling in her head.

“It’s real–”

“Where?”

“My stomach– the wound opened, it opened–” she babbled, as terror set its grip onto her brain. She couldn’t think straight, all it mattered was that gaping gash splitting her flesh and organs, tearing her apart.

Then she felt Din’s hand press right onto the open wound: a yelp of pain escaped her chapped lips as her eyes widened in shock, blurring with pain. _Why was he hurting her, why was he–_ he kept brushing his palm against her ripped-up abdomen, and for a split second– _for a second,_ she felt her own skin, intact, giving in at that light, normal pressure. Then the wound’s hems widened, deforming under that movement– and _there_ it was again: the simple feeling of Din’s glove lightly brushing against her unharmed body.

She thrashed but then clung to that sensation, putting both hands on Din’s and feeling a mixture of blood and untouched skin and fabric and broken flesh. His low voice kept echoing; she couldn’t grasp the single words, but its rhythm and soothing timbre were enough to hold her afloat.

The waves of pain slowly rippled back from the wound, one breath at a time, and she clumsily dared to roll on her back. Beyond a veil of tears, she met Din’s impassible yet worried-out-of-his-mind visor as he was bent over her. She immediately shut her eyes, feeling dizzy. She felt him putting a hand under her head, but kept the other on her wound. _Not-wound_. Phantom wound. Now her fingertips only perceived her vest’s intact fabric and Din’s leather glove, still firmly pressed against her abdomen.

The blood was still there, though. She could feel it drenching her clothes and slowly bubbling out of the non-existent gash, seeping through both her and Din’s fingers. Then the pain hovered inside her, squeezing her organs, before melting back into her mind without a trace. She let out a trembling breath as she cracked her eyelids open, meeting again Din's eye beyond the visor.

She felt her damp hair plastered to her face in sweat and tears, and she tentatively pulled a lock away from her cheek, finding it clean from any blood. She slowly sat up and avoided Din’s gaze at all costs as he helped her and then slightly pulled back, leaving her room to breathe. She felt like an idiot now, a little kid who couldn’t wake up from a nightmare.

She clamped a hand on her mouth, trying to get her shivers under control, feeling Din’s gloves gently rubbing a bit of warmth into her exposed arms. Her skin was icy, despite feeling feverish. She let him, too shaken to even try to stop him and actually welcoming that calming gesture.

“Is it over?” he asked softly. His voice sounded on edge, and she could tell he was trying to meet her gaze even behind the helmet. She just nodded, inhaling a deep breath from her nose. “What happened?”

She shook her head as she wiped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “I… was wounded. All of a sudden, with no reason. I could feel it. I could really _feel_ it.”

Just like on Endor, she didn’t say. It went unspoken: he knew she had a close encounter with death in that Force-forsaken jungle, even though she didn’t tell him the details. But she still bore the jagged scar across her abdomen as a witness, and now it throbbed as if it had just been stitched up in the field hospital. She slipped a hand underneath her vest, feeling the scar's relief: it was closed, completely healed – just a bit warm to the touch.

Din nodded, both palms now pressed against his thigh plates as he remained knelt beside her. “Okay, but I meant right _before_ that. What happened then?”

That was an even harder question. What _did_ happen? She’d been fine, perfectly fine, then her headache spiked and suddenly the world plummeted into agony and fear. _Wait_. Not so _suddenly_. The buzzing– the buzzing had grown louder and louder, then– she raised her head abruptly, meeting Din’s faceplate.

“What?”

“The buzzing… is gone,” she stammered, realizing how absurd that sentence was. Din tilted his head sideways in that unique way of his and seemed to repress the inclination to ask her if she was concussed. She couldn’t blame him if he did. “Do you hear it?” she asked, all the same, feeling a grip of panic in her chest. Din shook his head.

“No. It’s all quiet, I didn’t hear a single sound since we climbed inside,” he replied, speaking slower than usual. Her worry must have still lingered in her features because he slightly bowed his head and reached for his temple, where the helmet’s audio controls were. He turned one of the knobs, probably amplifying the reception. “Don’t speak now, or you’ll deafen me,” he added, raising a hand to stop her just as she was mindlessly about to do so.

He listened intently for about half a minute, then turned the knob again. “Nothing. Not even from the outside. You think it’s this… _buzzing_ that affected you?” he asked then. He sounded confused, but she appreciated the fact that he didn’t just brand her theory as a part of her hallucination.

“I don’t know. It started in the forest, and it only got louder in here. But now it’s gone. There must be a connection.” She paused, wiping her still clammy hands on her bent knees. She knew her voice still quavered. They were facing something they couldn't even see or properly address – she couldn't just shoot her way through it or outsmart it. After a long time, she felt powerless. “I don’t understand,” she said, frustrated and angry at herself for her own weakness.

Din took a deep breath, then proceeded to check the room they were in, as if suddenly remembering they were in hostile territory. She expected him to stand up and do a quick recon, but he shifted on the spot and came to sit cross-legged instead. He sighed, bowed his head, then looked straight at her.

"I do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> –Rangir: to hell with it
> 
> The plan was to wrap this up in five chapters. Something went wrong and now I can only say there won't be more than ten. Hopefully.  
> (and keep an eye out for Those Perfectly Normal Bees).
> 
> I hope you liked the chapter, and leave a kudos or a comment if you did (or even and especially if you *didn't*. All feedback is welcome and helps me get better ♥)
> 
> See you next time and thank you for reading!


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